1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to controlling an optical disc drive, and more particularly, to a method of switching the optical disc drive into a reading state from a writing state in order to read recorded data on an optical disc.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A rewritable optical disc, such as CD+RW(R)/-RW(R) and DVD+RW/-RW, which has the properties of large storage capacity, low price, and easy portability, has been commonly used by users as a storage medium for video data for a long time.
Please refer to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a flowchart illustrating a prior art reading procedure of an optical disc drive after the optical disc drive receives a reading command from a host computer when the optical disc drive is under a writing state. According to the prior art, when the optical disc drive receives a writing command from the host computer, the optical disc drive enters the writing state in step P1, and then starts writing data onto a rewritable optical disc. At the same time, i.e. in the writing process, the optical disc drive will check if there is any reading command received from the host computer for reading the recorded data on the optical disc (step P2). If it is detected that a reading command was received from the host computer, then, in step P3, the optical disc drive will send an error code (such as Senskey02/04/08) back to the host computer. (Please note that, some of the prior art may abort the whole writing process when the reading command is received from the host computer.) Then, in step P4, the optical disc drive continues to proceed with the writing process. Accordingly, once the prior art optical disc drive enters the writing state, the optical disc drive will write the predetermined data onto the optical disc continuously until the predetermined data is completely recorded onto the optical disc. In other words, the recorded data can only be read by the optical disc drive after the whole data writing process is finished.
As the optical disc drive may need a long time to write the whole data onto the rewritable optical disc and the user is unable to obtain the previously recorded data during the data writing process, the user has to wait for the optical disc drive to finish the data writing process before instructing the optical disc drive to read the recorded data on the optical disc. Accordingly, the conventional control method of the optical disc drive is inefficient and inconvenient for one who needs to review the recorded data instantaneously. Therefore, there is a need to improve the conventional control method of the optical disc drive.